Can design overcome an optometrist shortage in the developing world?
Lack of access to eye care professionals is a serious problem in the developing world. Dr. Joshua Silver designed inexpensive eyeglasses that can be self-adjusted to the correct prescription.
Can high quality, low cost medical equipment be broadly available to the world’s poorest?
D-Rev, a San Francisco based nonprofit product development company designs and distributes radically affordable, world-class medical products to some of the world’s poorest citizens.
Can social change be taught?
Design for Extreme Affordability is a graduate course offered by Stanford University where students are asked to design products and services which will change the lives of the world’s poorest citizens.
Can we design a slum-friendly city?
Himanshu Parikh discusses the evolution of cities and slums, and how a historicist read can lead us to new engineering innovations.
How do we democratize design?
Dr. Silver of the Centre for Vision in the Developing World shares how his groundbreaking design for self-adjusting glasses can address a serious lack of optometrists in the developing world.
Can an online puzzle game crowdsource solutions to preventing and curing disease?
Foldit is an online game where players contribute to scientific research via an addictive puzzle game. Crowdsourcing is Foldit’s success: the creative problem-solving of thousands of people refines complex computations.
What happens when gravity replaces modern technology as a tool to design urban infrastructure?
Himanshu Parikh is an Indian engineer who developed of the concept of ‘slum networking,’ which stems from how the traditional organization of cities was based on natural features such as topography and gravity.
Why invest in architecture in resource-limited settings?
MASS Designs has worked in over a dozen countries, bringing the value—and power, of architecture to resource-limited communities.
Can menstrual pads contribute to economic opportunities for women?
18% of women and girls in Rwanda miss school and work because they cannot afford menstrual pads. SHE developed affordable, locally produced pads that provide sanitary protection and business opportunities.
